Edge of Reason
by Ravyn
Summary: Because sometimes redemption is waiting for you exactly where you left it. Collection of Drabbles. Sasu/Saku
1. Avoidance

So apparently, Sasuke was getting pissy that Naruto was getting all the attention. So I am giving in and posting this. It's probably going to be a series of drabbles, and not an actual plot induced story, but since I am a plot addict I am sure something will come up.

I don't think I have a direct handle on Sasuke, so this might be a little OC. I am writing this from the perspective that once back in Konoha, he makes some decisions about his life and decides to do something about it. We all know what happens once the man gets an idea in his head.

Plus, I really wanted there to be something not so angst driven between these to. I am allergic to angst and its been driving me crazy!

So here is the first part of I don't know how many. I don't know when I am going to be updating.

Remember, I don't own Naruto or anything else, sadly.

Ravyn

PS: This isn't beta read, so please forgive any and all mistakes.

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"You've been avoiding me."

Sakura froze. Letting her eyes slide shut, she tilted her head forward so the short strands of her pink hair would hide her eyes. How had she missed his approach? Mentally cursing Orochimaru's ghost for teaching him to be so damn good at masking his presence, she took a calming breath.

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of the lock on her door _snicking_ into place. Curling her fingers into white knuckled fists, she refused to bolt for the window. She was strong enough now that if one of them was going to take a headfirst trip out of the Hokage's tower, it certainly wasn't going to be _her_.

"Sakura."

"Yes, Sasuke." She kept her voice light. Controlled. "I have."

"Why?"

Why? She mused over that question, unclenching her fists so that she could reach over and finish organizing scrolls into the box in front of her. The box she intended on taking home and browsing through before bed.

Why exactly had she been avoiding him? It had started out as a reflex to the awkwardness that had settled between them. He was back. They had won. Years of her life had accumulated to that one moment in Sound. Itachi was dead. Orochimaru was most certainly in pieces, although she wasn't entirely sure what Tsunade had done with his head. Knowing her sensei, it was probably not something to ask.

He had saved her life. He had almost taken Naruto's. Kakashi had ended everything and she still hadn't been able to pry it out of any of the men in her life _how_. She had held her own, defended her teammates, and they had brought Sasuke _home_. Where he belonged. Where he was going to stay. So why was she avoiding him?

Because it hurt. Because he was too beautiful to look at and because she could only see the things that might have been if he had stayed; stupid, silly things that didn't matter anymore. Because her heart still clenched every time those dark eyes fell on her and because she was all right with that. Because she would never allow herself to enter a relationship for the wrong reasons even if she wanted them to be the _right ones_ so bad she couldn't breathe if she thought about it.

Because he was going to love her for _her_ and not because she had a womb and could give him a family. She would love _him_ because of who he had become and not who he had been, and she _didn't know that person_. Because he needed support and strength and she was afraid she could only give it to him from a distance. Tsunade had taken jurisdiction over his case, claiming that the political backlash from the council would tear Konoha apart. Because if he messed up once, _just once_, he would be executed and it would break her heart into more pieces than she could find if she let herself _hope_.

"I don't know."

Silence. Licking her bottom lip, she settled the lid of the box into place. She let her eyes scan her desk, searching for anything else she might need. Straightening, she froze at the feel of him at her back, her clothing brushing his. Her eyes were wide enough now that the corners stung.

"Don't lie to me, Sakura."

She clenched her teeth together and her temper warmed the knot that had formed in her gut. She tilted her head and stared at his chin, not quite daring to look at his eyes. Would they be black or sharingan red? Which was worse?

"You don't love me." She told him that firmly, _daring_ him to contradict her. To lie. His body didn't move and she didn't want to read his eyes. "You know what Sasuke? I don't think I love you either."

His hands were on the edge of the desk now, arms resting on the curve of her hips. She continued to stare at his jaw. He had a tiny scare just below his ear. She wondered what he had allowed to get that close to him. He hadn't had it when they were genin.

He didn't say anything, and she could guess at his silence. Sighing, she debated pushing him away. Sasuke was strong, and he was fast, but like this, she was the one who was the most dangerous. He could end her life with a kunai, but she could stop his heart almost as easily as a Hyuuga.

"What do you want, Sakura?"

She blinked at the note in his tone. A faint growl that rumbled along his words. Cautiously she peeked up at him and the black of his gaze caught and held her.

"I don't know that either."

His head moved a little. Perhaps a nod. Perhaps he was annoyed and was considering leaving and had stopped himself. Perhaps nothing.

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

Her brows beetled together. "I told you."

"You lied."

She quirked a brow up. "Is that a challenge?"

The edges of his mouth deepened into what might have been a smile. "No. Just the truth."

She shrugged. "Your truth isn't my truth, Uchiha."

"No." He agreed.

"Do you think we can be friends?"

It was his turn to blink at her. She had to fist her hands at her side to keep from reaching up and touching. She hadn't earned the right to touch. She didn't deserve to touch.

"That depends on you."

"What?" Sakura blurted, startled.

"I asked you what you wanted, Sakura." His tone was patient now, slightly mocking. "Does a friend enter into that?"

Her eyes narrowed. "If you start patronizing me, I'm going to break your ribs."

His head tilted until his breath ghosted across her lips and her pulse started to race. "I look forward to your trying it."

"I won't let you use sex against me, Sasuke." She was proud of how calm her voice sounded. "I really will break something if you don't back up."

He straightened but didn't move away, something dangerous lurking behind his eyes. "You're still hiding."

"So are you," she challenged, twisting so that they were facing each other, leaning her thighs against the desk. "Why did you come here Sasuke?"

"Perhaps I wanted to talk."

"That requires more than fifty words." She made a motion with her hand. "So please, feel free to talk."

The left corner of his mouth curled. "There are more ways to talk than with words, Sakura." His voice drawled her name and her stomach lurched.

"Do you want me to hit you?"

"I've already answered that."

Sakura placed one hand on his chest – warm skin, steady heartbeat – and pushed him back a step. She didn't use chakra, and the way he moved promised he was doing it only because he let her. Moving around the desk, she started collecting her things.

"I'll walk you home."

"No you won't."

"No?" His voice had gone soft and smooth, like chocolate. She cut a glance out of the corner of her eyes and repressed a shiver at the way he watched her. Like a predator.

"No, Sasuke. You won't." She straightened.

"Are you afraid of me, Sakura?"

A question she could finally answer. "Of you? No." She lowered her eyes to the mark on his wrist that Tsunade had put there. To monitor him. "Of what your decisions will be? Yes."

He nodded, as if he had expected that.

"I'll walk you home."

"You're going to find it difficult to walk anyone home with broken legs," she told sweetly. "I said no."

He shrugged. "I don't care."

"We'll I do." She picked up her box and frowned at him. "Stay here."

"Do you like baiting me?"

"I would think you would be relieved," Sakura said with a shrug. "I'm not flinging myself at your feet and begging you to take me on a date."

"You were annoying," he agreed with another shrug. "But you never flung yourself at my feet."

"I didn't like dirt." She replied unlocking the door before stepping into the hall. "It would have ruined the outfit that I had picked out."

He didn't say anything, and she waited for him to leave before making sure that the lock was secure. He made no move to take the box out of her hands, but she knew it didn't mean anything. For all her blustering, she was fairly certain she was stuck with him until she was at her front door.

She wasn't going to invite him in.

She shot him a glare as he fell into step beside her and she ignored the knowing looks from the staff around her. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she reached up with her free hand to block the fading sun as she adjusted to the change in light as they stepped into the empty courtyard.

"Shouldn't you be training with Naruto?"

"I told him I would be with you."

"Meh, go _away_ Sasuke."

He leaned over just enough to meet her eyes. "No."

Resting the box on her hip, she frowned at him. "Why?"

His eyes turned away from her face and he was silent so long she considered leaving him there alone. But there was something about his stance, about the line of his jaw that told her to stay. She was annoyed with herself for thinking she could read him after all this time. There were too many years between them.

"I don't care about the clan, Sakura."

"Bullshit," she shot back, challenging him with her tone. "You killed your brother."

Those dark eyes swerved to her. "Yes."

"You can't tell me you don't care about your clan."

"I have become distinctly distrustful of cages." His tone was mild but there was an edge there sharper than any blade Sakura had.

Biting the corner of her lip, she chewed on that for long moments. If she hadn't spent so much time with Neji over the past year, learning how to move within an ANBU unit she would never fully be a part of, she would never have understood those words. Orochimaru had tried to take his body. Itachi had tried to take first his sanity and then his eyes. The council dreamed of having the Uchiha clan back, dreamed over being able to control the sharingan.

The only problem it seemed was Sasuke himself. His unwillingness to be controlled. To be caged by expectations that weren't his own.

"All right." She motioned between them. "What does that have to do with us?"

A smile flickered over his mouth and then it was gone. "Maybe nothing. Perhaps everything." His gaze swallowed her whole for a moment. "I told you, it depends on you."

She froze. Then she blew up. "Don't you dare say that to me, Uchiha Sasuke."

Spinning on her heel, she marched away from him, ignoring the strange looks she was getting as she moved through the crowd, face flushed and eyes narrowed to slits. He was at her elbow in five strides, but she was too mad to look at him. What she wanted to do was take the box under her arm and beat him to death with it.

Uchiha Sasuke. Last surviving member of his clan. Kin slayer. Killed by a box wielding medic-nin. The thought was almost enough to calm her down. He must have noticed it, because when they turned onto an empty street, his fingers closed around her elbow.

"Sakura."

It was that damn _patient_ tone again.

She closed her eyes. "I want us to be friends, Sasuke."

His calluses felt strange against her skin. She didn't know what had formed them. She could catalogue every scare, every scrap of mission roughened skin on Naruto's body but she didn't know Sasuke's.

"I know."

"Then what is this about?" She spun, starring up at him. "I will not play games with you, Sasuke. You better damn well respect me enough to return the favor!"

His hands were on her shoulders. "I'm not playing games."

"You don't love me." She gritted it out through clenched teeth. "I don't love you." Why was she repeating herself?

He tilted his head. "You don't _know_ _me_, Sakura."

'You don't know me.' Not 'you don't love me.' Not a confirmation of her argument. Just a challange. The unsaid suggestion that he knew _her_.Her blood was loud in her ears. "Don't draw those kinds of lines, Uchiha. You don't want those kinds of lines."

"I want those lines very much." He corrected her. "Because then I know where I stand."

Because then he could pick his battle ground, because then he knew how to approach her and how to find the chinks in her armor.

She stared at him suspiciously. "Are you trying to piss me off?"

Let that be the reason.

The edges of his mouth depend, as if he was hiding a smile. "Perhaps. You're more honest angry."

"I'm being honest _now_!"

"You're also angry." He pointed out. She kicked him in the shin. He flinched, but didn't let go of her, and the look on his face was reproachful.

"Next kick will break bone." She warned through clenched teeth.

He sighed and his hands released her shoulders.

She felt strangely cold.

His eyes flickered to the sun and then they were twisting with the sharingan, boring into her own. Looking for truth only he could see. "There is no us, Sakura."

His fingers reached out and brushed away a strand of her hair as she watched him, eyes dark. "But perhaps we can learn."

She swallowed. "Why did you save me? At Sound?" _'Why did you come back? Why are you doing this now?_ _What changed your mind?_'

His eyes never left her face. "Why did you save me?"

She shook her head. "I didn't."

He quirked his brow, eyes dark and unreadable, and the gesture was so familiar that she wanted to cry.

"I'm not a boy." His tone was warning.

"I'll kick your ass, given the chance." Hers was hard.

He nodded. "I know."

She wanted to hit him. "_Sasuke_!"

"I can't discover if there is anything between us, Sakura, if you're hiding."

She squared her shoulders and stared at him, refusing to back down from his sharingan. Her stomach trembled at all the things he wasn't saying. The fact that they were even having this conversation was surreal. Too much of it depended on a past they weren't admitting to having. She wanted to hug him, she wanted to hurt him.

She didn't do either.

"Do you want there to be?" '_Why?_'

"Do you?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Then that is what we will look at." He said decisively. "I can give you that."

"Is that all you can give me?"

He blinked, and his sharingan was gone. "That we will have to look at as well."

She bit her lip. Was that enough? _Why_? "Will you stay?"

He tilted his head.

"Here." She flung her hand out. "Will you be happy to stay?"

He was silent for a long time. He didn't look away from her, but she couldn't read him this time. "That is something I am learning as well."

She shifted her box. "If you run, I really will break your legs." _'If you try to leave me after this, I'll do more than break your legs._'

A smile flickered across his face. "I know."

She licked her lips and nodded before shoving her box into his gut. "If you're going to walk me home, you can carry that."

He stared at her. "No more hiding?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know. I can try."

He nodded, motioning for her to walk. "That's all I ask."

She took a deep breath. "This doesn't mean were friends." _'Or anything else. Not yet, at least.'_

His eyes drank her in. "I know."

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**Please Comment.**

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	2. Everything

Okay. This piece could be read as being written before the last piece (well, it was) I just didn't know how the two connected. Figured I should post it with an explanation so I didn't confuse some poor readers. So technically, this doesn't connect to the first piece, but it could.

Also, in case you missed my update on my profile, I am going to be making this a collection of drabbles. I tried to turn it into a full fledged story and it wasn't working. So now I am playing around and seeing where this will go.

Thanks for all the lovely, lovely reviews for the first chapter!

Also, I am totally screwing around with the timeline here. Oops?

Ravyn

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She was avoiding him

She was avoiding him. Resting his shoulder against the side of a building, he studied the pink haired medic that was moving carefully through the crowded streets. Several shopping bags were held firmly in her arms as she maneuvered through groups of clustered civilians. Naruto was off on a mission for the Hokage, which gave him the time alone he needed to deal with this particular problem.

It had been a year since his return to Konoha. The memory of Naruto half-dragging, half-carrying him after his fight with Itachi was still one that left a bitter taste in his mouth. He only had vague relocations of when she had joined them. He could recall the tone of her voice, the narrowed eyed look of determination, but his memory was too fuzzy to pick out any more details. That was fine with him. It wasn't so much how they had gotten him back into Konoha as much as it was what they had done after he returned that he needed to remember.

Pushing away from the wall, he kept his chakra suppressed, moving quietly behind her. He would have scolded her for not being more aware if he didn't know that she would shake it off and offer him that slight smile.

Naruto had told him – almost carelessly while he was still stuck in that _damn_ _hospital_ _room_ – that things had changed while he was gone.

ANBU had kept an eye on him. It hadn't seemed to bother Naruto; he was too busy wearing that satisfied smirk. Sasuke could have told them that they were wasting their time. Itachi was dead. While he still had business to settle with Orochimaru, he had no particular reason to leave Konoha.

He hadn't seen her as often as Naruto. _Sakura_. She had shown up on occasion, looking flushed and tired as she checked his bandages, a little note of uncertainty creeping into her voice when she spoke to him. Her fingers had trembled only once and after that she was never alone in the room with him and she avoided his eyes. He had brushed it off as that ridiculous crush she had apparently never quite gotten over as a child.

She had been at his trial, sitting silently next to him with white lips and a stubborn set of her jaw. Naruto had sat on his other side, expression daring the council to vote against him. It was the first time he had bothered to wonder how things would have been if he had stayed. He didn't regret leaving. His brother was dead and while Orochimaru would never leave him alone, that was a threat he knew how to handle. He didn't regret leaving, but in that moment, he _had_ wondered.

The council had come down on him but they hadn't killed him. He had known that they wouldn't risk loosing the sharingan. Their decision of two years restricted to the village, no missions, and weekly meetings with Tsunade to judge his mental stability could have been worse. The vague notion that he was being used as bait to lure out Orochimaru had been cased aside after a conversation with Naruto. There had been a look in the blonde's eyes, one that he recognized easily. A hatred that burned deep. Sasuke gave up any notions of killing Orochimaru himself.

Sasuke understood revenge.

Naruto had never been too complicated. While Sasuke had refused to fall back into their old familiarity with each other, he _had_ been willing to create a new one. Naruto had seemed to understand, but there had been disquiet in his eyes for a few days that had suddenly disappeared. Sasuke suspected Sakura had something to do with that. The two of them had been testing each other out slowly, learning the areas that could and could not be treaded.

Sakura avoided him.

She showed up late to dinners Naruto had decided Team 7 must have and found reasons to leave early. She worked herself to the bone at the hospital. She trained with them. He had learned fairly quickly to avoid her chakra-enhanced punch. (He couldn't quite forget her smile the first time she had broken his ribs.) In had been in one of those breathless moments where exhaustion left them boneless and dripping in sweat that she had smiled, really smiled (and not because he was on the ground struggling to breathe.)

Something had changed in his perception of her in that moment.

It hadn't been the fake, too wide smile of their childhood, and it hadn't been the one that came so easily to her mouth when she was around anyone but him. It had been small, the edges of her lips just curving. Her eyes had been bright with adrenaline and there had been something in her face that had left him feeling like she had managed to clock him. Completion. Relief. And something else, something soft and warm and almost welcome.

When she had caught him watching her that smile had died.

If she had been avoiding him before that, she had been flat out hiding from him after it.

He narrowed his eyes as he watched her shift her bags to push a strand of hair out of her eyes and considered his next move.

He could let her slip away. Odds that Team 7 would actually ever go on another mission together were slim to none. He was back in Konoha, yes. Itachi was dead, yes. He assumed that Orochimaru's life expectancy was lower each day that Konoha hunted him. The Akatsuki were still a threat, but Itachi's death had taken away one of their more dangerous members. Even so, he sincerely doubted that even after this probation was up that they would ever actually allow him out of the village. The council would do it under the disguise of 'protecting' him, of course.

It would be easy, to let her go. To let her hide behind work and duty, to watch her work herself to an exhaustion as she hide from whatever it was that she had shown him in that practice field. The reason her fingers had trembled that first morning in the hospital. Naruto hadn't dragged him back _alone_. The idiot didn't have the ability to plan far enough in advance that they could track Itachi, to wait for the aftermath of his duel with his brother in hopes that there would be enough left of him to bring home.

His gut told him that it had been Sakura who had been involved the plans creation. He had learned more about Naruto and Sakura's antics when he was gone from the Hokage during those 'mental stability' tests than he was sure either of them knew. The type of brain numbing tenacity it took to hold onto something that had been so fleeting compared to the time spent away from each other had rattled him. It was one thing to run into them occasionally, to be told that they wanted you back; it was another to have the evidence that everything they had done for years had been to reach a certain goal. And that that goal had been _him_.

And now she was running from it.

The question was now what did he want? Because if he chose her, if he decided to walk the path that would lead him to the answers of questions he was just starting to realize he had, he would do so until he knew _everything_. Until he had her memorized and tangled up so deeply in his life that neither of them would have a way out. He didn't know any other way than everything.

She would become his priority.

Watching her set her bags on the ground, he considered approaching but decided against it. Not until he knew which way he would walk. Not until he knew his own intentions. He owed her at least that.

Making sure she made it inside okay, he turned and headed back to his own place.

He had some thinking to do.

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